


sit for a while, dear son

by anserpina



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 15:24:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16390253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anserpina/pseuds/anserpina
Summary: [Talk honestly, no one else hears you][and I stay only a minute longer]A conversation between father and son.





	sit for a while, dear son

**Author's Note:**

> all italicized parts are excerpts from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” (1892 Version)
> 
> originally, i had a different plan for keith’s birthday fic, and it was way happier than this because i love him and want him to be happy all the time. but then i read this poem and somehow this poured out. so this is what i’m posting instead. i hope you like it.
> 
> happy birthday, keith, earthborn son of the stars.

Everything is as it was here, which is surprising considering the devastation from the Galra. 

 

The earth had been scorched long before the paladins had returned and the battle for their home planet hadn’t been kind to the environment. One of the first things he had done after the fight was fall to the ground, dazed and confused with blood trickling down the side of his face. He laid on the barren earth, dry except for a few spots where some liquid (blood, his blood) had touched it, and started to cry. Not from exhaustion, though he was tired and drained enough to do so, but because he had a hand in harming the land- the same land that had kept him steady on his feet, had provided a cushion for him all his life in the form of soft grass, the sand that would sneak into his boots and follow him home. 

 

Nature had always been there for him, back when no one else was. And he had aided its destruction. His lasers had burned away what little foliage had been left, and hot tears of shame and sadness came whether he wanted them to or not. He eventually passed out in the dirt, spread out over the crumbled ground until someone had lifted him up, cleaned his face and his wounds, and had laid him in a hospital bed.

 

He was happy to see that some life had bloomed while he was unconscious. Mother Nature had taken the four months he had spent asleep and had begun to fix herself. That was one of the things he had always admired about nature: the resilience, the way that she refused to let herself be broken for long. Wounds heal, life continues, and so nature does too. She picks herself up, dusts herself off, and starts anew.

 

He had done that a few times himself.

 

Miraculously, this plot of land hadn’t suffered at all from the devastation. He had never really believed in any kind of higher power before, and he still  _ didn’t _ , because no higher power had saved the people they had lost in the war, and he couldn’t believe that any giver of life could take it so cruelly like that. Still, he found himself immensely grateful to the deity he wasn’t sure existed for protecting this part of the land and keeping it untouched. For allowing it to remain sacred ground. For letting him keep this one thing throughout all of the loss they had suffered.

 

He didn’t want to hurt the grass by sitting on it, but the earth had thrown her passion into this place, and it was completely surrounded by the blades of green. So he sat down, carefully, his knees pulled close to his face, boot soles resting on the firm ground. Arms sore both from overuse and lack of use wrapped around his knees. He rested a scarred cheek on them, his head tilted to read the words on the stone in front of him. The words were blurry (as was anything his eyes touched) and were hard to read, but they were engraved in his mind already. Thirteen years of repeating them to himself had cemented them in the forefront of his mind, and they came back to him immediately.

 

_ Missing me one place search another, _ _  
_ _ I stop somewhere waiting for you. _

 

“Hey, dad,” he whispers softly. “Let’s catch up.”

 

* * *

 

 

 

_ [all goes onward and outward, nothing collapses] _

 

“I read that poem, you know,” Keith says casually. “It’s long as fuck, which was kind of good because I had the time after… you left.” He feels a little pathetic at not being able to say the word  _ died _ , as if his father had just walked out of their front door one day and never came back, when really, he had ran blindly through a front door that he shouldn’t have and never came back. He clears his throat quickly and continues. “The writer was gay, though I’m sure you knew that. You always seemed to know everything.” He taps his foot idly on the ground, listening to the dull thud each thump made. “I didn’t understand the gay part of the poem until I was thirteen or… no, I think I was thirteen. That was when I started at the Garrison and when those lines, uh, clicked into place.” He grinned a little goofily at the name on the tombstone. “I thought of all the times you would read it to me and I’m pretty sure you knew I was gay before I did. See what I mean? You always knew  _ everything _ .” 

 

He laughs, and he hears the echo of another laugh, deeper and more gravely, in his head. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend that laugh is coming from in front of him instead of inside his memory.

 

“I was thinking about that line about death,” he says, a little more seriously. “I think it was ‘to die is different from what anyone thinks and luckier’ or something. That’s probably not exactly right but... I think there’s some truth to it.” He reflects on the events of the past three years, on all of the death he has seen and feels tired all of sudden, like the weight of each death is pressing on his shoulders. “I can tell you from experience that the people left behind after someone dies are a lot unluckier,” he breathes. “I don’t know if that’s fair of me to say, because I’m here, and the- they aren’t.” He feels like he has to keep talking, but it’s hard to talk with a lump in his throat blocking all of his words. “You aren’t here,” he says simply. “And even though I’ve almost died more times than I can count, I still think that I’m unluckier. Because as long as I’m here, and you’re there… I’m always going to miss you. And it hurts sometimes.” 

 

He buries his head in his arm, hides his face from the world and the block of stone that he’s talking to like it’s a real person, like it’s his father. “It hurts all the time,” he admits.

 

* * *

 

_ [I understand the large hearts of heroes] _

_ [the courage of present times and all times] _

 

Keith picks up a pebble from the grass and tosses it between his hands. He watches lazily as it travels from one calloused palm to the other and back again. “You would have liked my team,” he says. 

 

He’s sure of it. If Team Voltron could break into Keith’s carefully constructed iron fortress of a heart then they would have no problem winning over his dad. Ken Kogane was all smiles and southern hospitality, a force to be reckoned with when he chose to be and everybody’s friend the rest of the time. 

 

He laughs a little bit when he imagines his dad meeting the team, setting down sweet tea in front of them on the kitchen table he had made himself. They would share stories back and forth: he would show Shiro his own bike, a relic of the past with two wheels and no ability to fly at  _ all _ . Allura would be interested in everything, considering how intrigued she had been just by the earth inventions they had been showing her. He imagines her popping open the microwave to peer inside curiously and lets out a loud bark of laughter. Pidge would have been lost in his dad’s auto manuals, no doubt, and Hunk too, though the Yellow Paladin would eventually walk away from the books get lost in the pantry. He would probably die of horror at the pre-packaged cans of soup that Ken and Keith bought tons of, each of them sneaking a can in the cart at the grocery when the other wasn’t looking. They had ended up with twenty cans of chicken noodle soup and no vegetables and they really didn’t care much at all. He has trouble placing Lance in the scene, unsure of what he would gravitate towards in the house until he realizes that the kind hearted boy would probably be trading jokes with him and his dad at the kitchen table, sharing embarrassing stories of the Black Paladin like they were currency. Both his dad and Lance had that charm that trapped Keith whenever they spoke, his interest trained on each of them regardless of how much he feigned disinterest, eager to hear whatever was churning inside of their minds.

 

His heart aches more than he expects, and he falls back into the grass with a sigh.

 

* * *

 

_ [Will you speak before I am gone?] _

 

“I’m sorry I haven’t been here,” he whispers. “I mean, I know i was in space for the last three years but before that… I didn’t come to talk to you.” He kept his eyes trained on the wild flowers growing at the base of the stone, the petals bending in the slight breeze. “I didn’t think I was strong enough to come back here after the funeral. And I’m sorry for that.” He waves a hand through the air briskly. “I know you aren’t actually here or anything but I missed out on this, and it’s been really good talking, even if you can’t hear me. I like to think you can.”

 

He pats the ground absentmindedly, letting his hand run through the soft patch of grass he’s laying in. He’s laying on his back, the sunlight radiating down and warming his face as it slips into mid-afternoon. His head is turned towards the place where his dad is buried and a few tears slip out unintentionally. “I don’t remember what the last thing I said to you was,” he says. “I tried to think of it at the funeral, because everyone was asking, but I must have blocked it out.” He smiles at the memory and chuckles. “I told everyone that asked to fuck off because really, who in their right mind asks an eight year old that question, a day after their last remaining family member died?” He laughs a little harder at his eight year old self. “You and I really were cut from the same cloth, dad.”

 

Keith looks from the flowers to the gravestone again, his eyes falling on the name etched there. “I know what I would have said.” He traces the name lightly with one finger. It drags along the harsh lines of  _ Kenneth Sampson Kogane _ easily as he speaks. “I would have told you about that time I kicked my soccer ball through the window and begged our neighbor to help me fix it before you got home. I would have said that your homemade soup didn’t match up to Campbells, but that I’d eat it anyway. Or your muffins, for that matter, but I’d eat those too. Even though they were as hard as rocks. I’d admit to spilling that white paint on your bike and you would laugh because it  _ did _ look pretty cool with white stripes on it.” He swallows briefly and ignores the painful thud of his own heart beating.

 

“I’d tell you that I loved you. I hope that’s what I actually said.”

 

* * *

 

_ [You are asking me questions and I hear you] _

_ [I answer that I cannot answer. You must find out for yourself] _

 

“I don’t know what to do, dad. What would you do?” Silence.

 

“I know what needs to be done. I know we have to finish this war. But I don’t know how, and everyone wants me to know how, and what am I supposed to say?” A bird chirps in the tree above him. He considers if it’s a sign, foolishly.

 

“I still don’t even know why the black lion chose me. Sure, I can lead people, I’m good at giving orders. I’m decisive. But leading and guiding are different, aren’t they?” He thinks they are, but he still looks for confirmation where there is none.

 

“I’m afraid that I’m not the same person that I was. I’m afraid that I’ve changed so much that my team doesn't understand me. And if I’m not the Keith that I was before, surely they don’t want me around anymore?” He wishes his dad was there to look at him and laugh, to tell him with a gruff voice that he was still himself.

 

“I wish I could give people hope. I’ve never been good at communicating. But I don’t have to talk to give people hope, right?” He’s seen hope fade from faces when he spoke and he doesn’t want that anymore, he wants to  _ help _ , he wants-

 

“Why did you have to go?” His face is wet and he ignores it purposefully. He also ignores the way his hand shakes when he lifts it to grip the tombstone.

 

“I wish you could answer me,” he cries out. His hand tightens for a second and then falls to the ground weakly.

 

* * *

 

_ [There is that in me] _

_ [I do not know what it is — but I know it is in me] _

 

“You’re made of tough stuff, kiddo,” his dad says breezily.

 

He’s sat on their couch, steaming mug of coffee in his hand. He drinks his coffee black, no sugar or cream or anything.  _ Natural, _ he always said. He had been reading the paper before Keith had strolled into the living room, his own hand clutched around the glass of chocolate milk his dad had left on the counter for him. Keith pulled himself onto the couch next to him and they watched cartoons, the same way they did every Sunday morning.

 

“What’s that mean?” Keith’s full of questions and his dad loves to talk, so he asks every single one as soon as he has them. “Tough stuff?” His dad laughs at the confused quirk of his eyebrow. He reaches out and smooths it, laughing harder when Keith rolls his eyes impatiently. “Dad, come on,” he whines.

 

“You gotta get more patient, shortstack,” he remarks. Keith raises his chin stubbornly until he starts to explain. “Alright, alright. Well, your mom was the strongest person I ever met,” he says. He pushes Keith’s shoulder lightly. “And I’m the strongest that you’ve ever met, right?”

 

A beat and then a smile. “Sure,” Keith agrees. 

 

“Okay, so it’s like this. The universe took all the strong parts of your mom, and all the strong parts of me, and mixed ‘em together to give to you. So you’re made of some real, real tough stuff.”

 

Keith thinks about this for a few minutes, his eyes narrowed slightly. His dad sits back and sips his coffee, well aware that with his son, where there’s one question, there was more questions. “So really,” he starts, and his dad grins. “I’m stronger than both of you.”

 

It’s not what his dad was expecting, not at  _ all, _ and he chokes on his coffee. “How do you figure?”

 

“If I have mom’s tough stuff  _ and _ your tough stuff then I have twice as much tough stuff!” He yells excitedly, his hands clapping together happily. “I know that’s right because Miss Yates said I’m the best student in the whole second grade!”

 

His dad smiles wide and ruffles his hair teasingly. “Yeah you got it, kiddo. You’re twice as tough.” He watches Keith settle back in the couch cushions, content with his answer. The cartoons come back from commercial break, and all that’s heard after that is their mixed laughter.

 

“Do you think I’m stronger than Popeye, dad?” Keith asks groggily. He yawned and tried to cover it with his hand so his dad didn’t see, but he was too late to hide it.

 

His dad stood up and hauled his son off the couch, strapping him to his back. He carried Keith to his room and set him down on the bed, pulling the covers up to his chin. “You’re definitely stronger than Popeye, Keith. You’re made of tough stuff, remember?”

 

Six year old Keith nodded and whispered, “Tough stuff,” before he closed his eyes.

 

* * *

 

Twenty one year old Keith smiled at his dad’s name in front of him and whispered, “Tough stuff,” before he closed his eyes.

 


End file.
